Twitter security flaw sends Sarah Brown followers to Japanese porn

The Twitter web interface has been floored by a security flaw which is still spreading like wildfire across the social networking service. The vulnerability has affected numerous UK politicos including Sarah Brown, who forwarded many of her 1.1 million followers to a hardcore Japanese porn site.

A new Twitter security flaw has been widely exploited on thousands of Twitter accounts, redirecting users to third-party websites without their consent.

The bug is particularly nasty because it works on mouseover only, meaning pop-ups and third-party websites can open even if you just move your mouse over the offending link.

Unwanted popups and redirection to random websites, eh? Where have British political hacks seen this before?

It was meant to embarrass Gordon Brown: a website, cash-gordon.com, that would point to the prime minister’s links to the Unite union and be one of the first shots in the “digital election”.

But instead it rapidly turned to embarrassment for the Tory party after it was revealed that the site’s template came from a rightwing American group that opposes President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade system – and then became the target of a mass Twitter hack that led to it showing pornography, swearwords, Rick Astley videos, malware links, and redirecting visitors to the Labour party site.

The two most influential people in the Twitter nation already overtaking all the world’s media output are both under 17 and don’t yet have any chest hair. Imagine what could happen once this generation hits college and starts to discover social activism…